Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let me be absolutely clear: this government is fully committed to climate action and net zero by 2050. This government is fully committed to 82 per cent renewables by 2030. Since we came to office, there's been a 25 per cent increase in renewables in the national energy market, and this has driven both total emissions and emissions intensity to all-time record lows. We've doubled the rate of approvals for energy projects and provided over $1 billion for homes and businesses to upgrade their energy efficiency.

But the Greens don't want to talk about that. The Greens don't want to talk about the enormous progress that has been made on climate change, during this Labor government, after 10 years of inactivity. Instead, they want to stand up and make a range of outrageous slurs against Labor and against Labor MPs. They want to stand there and make a series of outlandish claims. The reason for that is the Greens are fearful of one thing above all, and that is a sensible and practical path to address climate change. If we have a sensible and practical path to address climate change, we won't have the politics of outrage and we won't have the ability for them to make the perfect the enemy of the good. They are happy when the Liberals are in government, doing nothing on climate change, because it gives them the ability to rev up the outrage politics of climate change. That's why they're so annoyed about sensible, practical, middle-of-the-road climate change policies.

I saw this firsthand. In 2009 and 2010, I worked on the then Labor government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which was a plan to put an emissions trading scheme into Australia for the first time, a plan that would have been world leading and would have made a massive difference to Australia over the last 15 years. Who opposed it? The Greens. And why did they oppose it? Because sensible, methodical progress on climate change is anathema to the politics that they want to run on this issue. Time and time again, the Greens are opposed to sensible and practical change. Time and time again, the Greens make the perfect the enemy of the good.

The reason for that is there is nothing worse for their political strategy than having positive progress, the kind of positive progress that this government has implemented over the last two years: making a real difference on renewables; making a real difference on transmission; signing up to ambitious targets; bringing the business sector and the rest of the community, including the unions, together around a national target that it can actually deliver; signing back up to our international commitments; and being a leader on the world stage in climate change. All of this is exactly what the Greens do not want—practical, sensible change. That's why they're trying to whip up outrage on this issue. That's why, first thing in after the break: bang, they're into the suspension of standing orders; bang, full of outrage; bang, lots of slurs against individual Labor MPs; bang, lots of outrage in the speech. All of it is because the thing they fear most is practical, real change that makes the politics of outrage irrelevant.

Well, we are going to continue on this path. We are going to continue to methodically and practically work through the challenges to address the climate crisis in this nation and around the world. We have seen more progress in two years than was able to be achieved in the last 10 years, more progress in two years than was able to be achieved in the entire period of Liberal government and, I'm sorry to say, more progress in two years than was achieved in the last Labor government, when we made the mistake of thinking the Greens were fair dinkum on climate change. We made that mistake, and look what happened. They wouldn't support an emissions-trading scheme in this country. How the world would have been different, how Australia would have been different, if they hadn't made the perfect the enemy of the good. They voted against the CPRS then, and that is exactly the tactic they have right now. That was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address climate change in this country, to put us on a sensible path towards a clean energy future. The Greens took that off the table.

The member for Griffith stood up a moment ago and said, 'It's a mistake to think that Australia only has a small role to play in addressing global climate change.' We agree. We think Australia has a big role. That's why it's such a shame that back in 2010 the Greens stopped Australia from playing that role, from putting in a world-leading emissions-trading scheme. And that's why it's such a shame that they're trying to scupper the sensible, practical progress that has been made in Australia in the last two years. They don't want Australia playing that role on the world stage. They preferred it back when Australia was making no progress, under the Morrison government. In fact, the Leader of the Greens just a moment ago said, 'This government is worse than Scott Morrison.' Well, it's worse than Scott Morrison for him, friends, because, by doing sensible, practical things to address climate change, we're taking away the politics of outrage. He loved Scott Morrison. He loved the coal in the parliament. That enabled him to really rev up the outrage, to dial it up to 10.

That's why we're not seeing them come into this parliament and make any attacks on the Liberals' positions and we're not seeing them come in and support Labor's sensible positions. What we see instead is them pursuing the politics of outrage, because they don't want progress on climate change. Sensible, practical policies are their enemy, and they have always been their enemy. That's why they don't come in here and talk about the change that has occurred in Australia over the last 10 years and they don't attack Peter Dutton for his ridiculous, scandalous neglect on climate change. Australia is making progress, and they want to attack the government for that progress. What they would love is a world in which no progress was made, and they could go back to revving up the politics of outrage.

That is the difference. Labor is going to make practical, methodical change. We've made an enormous amount of progress in the last two years, and that is incredibly important to Australians. In my electorate, we face enormous consequences from climate change. In Parramatta, people are already paying the price with the impacts of climate change. Every summer, Parramatta gets almost 10 degrees hotter than the rest of Sydney. In 2019, one out of every eight days were above 35 degrees. And Parramatta is prone to catastrophic flooding—natural disasters that are getting worse and worse. In some of the published scenarios, up to 25 per cent of Parramatta could become a flood zone. That's why the people of Parramatta have been working to deliver a climate adaptation plan, a plan that addresses the local impacts of climate change and supports our progress in dealing with those impacts of climate change while at the same time the government gets on with mitigation.

Last week we delivered our Parramatta climate action plan, a plan supported by members of the community and community groups from across the electorate, distilling 137 community led recommendations into a plan that we can action over the next several years. That's sensible, methodical progress on climate change—real, practical action. At a local level, I'm so proud of the people of Parramatta for coming together on that plan. That practical, methodical plan is exactly the opposite of the politics of outrage that we see from the Greens as they come into this parliament.

For the first time in a decade we have a government taking climate change seriously. For the first time in a decade we have Australia back at the international table. For the first time in a decade we've got renewables going up. For the first time in a decade we have consensus from business groups, union groups and community groups on the need to address climate change. The people who cannot bear that consensus, the people who are completely opposed to that, who recognise it as the biggest threat to their political strategy are the Australian Greens political party. No wonder they've come into this House and expressed such outrage.

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